136 Derivations of Mineral Names. 
it was said: “ Sie hat einen Kobold” (a kobold is with her); and it 
was believed that this amiable spirit assisted her in her daily work. 
The underground association with nickels, however, must have 
tended to corrupt the kobold’s kindly disposition and to sharpen 
his enjoyment of practical jokes, which he carried even to the point 
of cruelty. He disturbed and hid the tools of the miners, interfered 
with their timbering, changed their ore, and played a thousand dis- 
tressing pranks. When the workmen proceeded to smelt silver 
from their ores, he caused the latter to emit mal-odorous, choking 
fumes in such dense masses as to injure the smelters. “ Kobelt’sche 
Ertze sind wilde und strenge Ertze.” (1743.) The heavy, white 
smoke spread itself upon the grass of the fields and killed the cat- 
tle. At last the kobold became identified with this fuming, smok- 
ing class of arsenical ores, so that Mathesius, in 1562, describes - 
cobalt as a “poisonous and injurious metal.” Linneus mentions 
arsenic (the source of the fumes) as Kobolt, and to this day the 
“ Scherbenkobalt” of German miners is but a variety of metallic 
arsenic. 
The metal cobalt was not extracted from its ores until Brandt, in 
- 1733, produced it in asomewhat impure state. Its blue glasses and 
slags became known about the middle of the sixteenth century by 
accident: a workman secretly threw a piece of the evil-minded 
“kobold” into his employer’s glass-furnace with the intentiun of 
causing the spirit to work dire mischief: the most beautiful blue 
glass resulted. 
Basanirr is derived from Gr. Sacavog=touchstone, probestone. 
It is used by Pindar in this sense as early as about 490 B.c. The 
word is formed from facavefw, possibly produced by contr. Gr. 
Baars, foundation, bottom, and vetw, I wash, clean—conveying the 
idea of “ sifting to the bottom.” 
The Latinized form, basanites, was indifferently applied to black 
quartz, the true probestone, and to basalt, the eruptive product. It 
has been claimed that a “typographical error” on the part of some 
early copyist bore the responsibility of having produced the latter 
word. The transition from basanites to basaltites seems easy. Pliny 
(A.D. 70) uses basaltes, a marble from Ethiopia, and speaks of the 
name as having been used before his time. 
get werden, so lässt es die Berg-Arbeiter auch zu frieden.” (18th Cen- 
tury.) 
